Is Smaller Always Better?

While watching the movie “My Best Friend’s Wedding” the other day, I started to think about the drive in technology to make devices smaller and faster. One of the last scenes in the film, particularly, spawned this thought. It was when Julia Roberts’ character, Julianne, sits in her lavender maid of honor dress at her best friend Michael’s (played by Dermot Mulroney) wedding reception all by her lonesome and pulls what now seems like a ginormous black cell phone out of her petite purse when George, played by Rupert Everett, gives her a call. It’s funny how big and bulky cell phones used to be.

Today, you can purchase a cell phone that is significantly smaller than your hand and almost as thin as a razor. Let’s just thank the drive to make things smaller and faster for eliminating the bulky, heavy cell phones from the ‘90s. Could you imagine still using and lugging around a cell phone like Zach Morris’ on “Saved by the Bell?” I sure couldn’t.

However, are smaller devices always better? When it comes to technology, a majority of people would say yes, but there have been some technology shifts where smaller wasn’t necessarily better. For example, minidisks that were introduced in the ‘90s simply fractured the marketplace rather than converting it. Many hoped that the minidisk would retire CDs, but it has never happened and probably never will, considering the popularity of DVDs. With technology, though, you should never say never because who knows what the future holds, technology-wise? The move to make things smaller, quicker and more advanced will not die.